The almighty ‘personnummer’ (your birthdate) makes everyones ages’ public and this may explain why Swedes do not mind giving their age when introducing themselves. For example when a group of people introduce themselves for each other, they say what their name is and how old they are.  You age is a kind of ‘taboo’ subject in many countries.  It is rude to ask someone how old they are.  When describing someone, phrases like ‘she’s in her mid-40s’ are common.  Here in Sweden, we say the birth year, like ‘I’m a 94:er’.  This is also used to describe soccer teams, etc ‘Boys 98’. “Pojkar 94 Ålidhem på plan 3” meaning “Boys 94 from the Ålidhem team on soccer field 3” During summer soccer tournaments you will hear those sorts of announcements being repeatedly made over the loudspeakers.

Perhaps people in Sweden are even proud of their age and want to let people know how old they are in relationship to how young they look (with hair dye, etc).

Students are not divided up according to when the school term starts but in respective to what year they are born. If you are going to start first grade year 2011 (usually when you are 6 years old in Sweden) you might already have turn 6 if you are born before August, but you might just as well be 5 turning 6. Therefor all people in a class are “year 11’s” or “88’s” etc.

So that was yet another use of the almighty “personnummer” for you.